Saturday, October 18, 2008
Away We Go! Japan, Yokoso!
Finally, today is the day that we depart for Japan. I hadn't actually felt that much excitement over this trip because of the problems that I had been having with SIA. Didn't even start packing my bags till about 0100hrs this morning. Finally went to bed at about half past three.
Woke up at ten minutes to six and I was supposed to meet my friend at 0620hrs. She'd grab a cab and come my way and we'd both buzz off to the airport. i had already done internet check in the night before so we already had window seats waiting for us. After collecting the boarding passes, we went off to the Mac's at one end of Terminal 3. We had our breakfast and then proceeded to board the plane. getting through customs was easy as we could go through the automatic clearance lanes. However, things got a little hairy at the gate check.
We were supposed to board the plane at gate B1, we managed to find the gate but it was a combined gate check. There were 4 gates being served by a group of x ray machines instead of individual checks for each gate. Only 3 machines were manned at the time and I think there were passengers for 2 or 3 flights trying to get past the check. The queue was long. I figured that there were a couple of people bringing contraband items in their hand luggage (stuff like liquids over their allowed limit). I started to hope for them to call people on our flight out to get checked first, and then it finally happened! Phew. My friend and I scrambled out of the queue so fast. At least 10 other people were still stuck at various stages of the queue. so we were asked to go to the front of the queue and while there, we indeed witnessed a JP guy carrying a few bottles of chilli sauce in his hand luggage. The chilli sauce was promptly thrown away by the staff, to anguished cries from the owner.
Anyway, we managed to get through the gates and onto the plane. we had barely settled in when the plane was rolling off.
Krisworld was cool. Watched Hancock, Get Smart and was got started on Men in Black. had breakfast and lunch on the plane. They served us breakfast, which was a bun and a muffin. As I was watching the movie, they didn't clear my breakfast plate till lunch, when my friend got served her lunch and I got passed over. After a bit, we got the attention of the steward to clear my breakfast tray and he asked me if i would like to have lunch now. I said yes and he told me that they only had the beef shepherd's pie left. They had run out of the Japanese menu which had Soba with chicken. My friend was lucky, she managed to get a portion of the Japanese menu, but since I got passed over, I was left with beef. So I told them that it was fine, I'd just go hungry until Japan.
This was where I was offered Salmon instead. I agreed, saying that it was fine, as long as it didn't have beef. At this point, I suspected that i was getting a lunch from Business / First class. Once the tray landed in front of me, I read the label and yep! I had gotten a lunch from Business Class.
I was advised that for the return flight, I should make my dietary restrictions clearer as sometimes, they have a beef and only one non beef menu. Just in case they run out of the non beef option.
Well, I certainly never thought that not eating beef was considered an extremely special dietary requirement. Lots of people in Singapore don't eat beef. I wonder why they didn't take into account the possibilities of how many people don't eat beef when they were planning their rations. According to my friend, this was not the first time such a thing has happened on SIA. One of the other SIA flights she took, some people ended up eating instant noodles.
Oh well, the cheese that came with the lunch was super yummy though. President cheese. When I get back to SG, I think I shall buy some!
After we landed in Kansai International Airport, we cleared customs and immigration and then my friend went off to send a package to her client on delivery to Tokyo. Once that was taken care of, we passed by some public phones and a phone card vending machine. We thought that we would be able to roam in Japan, but that proved to be negative. I'm not sure what my problem is but I think hers is because her phone is not 3G.
We bought a couple of phone cards, 7000 JPY worth! I think we over did it... My friend bought 1000 JPY worth, after we made the phone calls home, I asked if she would like to buy another card as spare, since we used up about 600 JPY worth of call credits already. She agreed and said to buy the 5000 JPY card, which I did and then she decided to buy another 1000 JPY worth of call credits! You can do your own sum and figure out how much that costs in SGD.
Next we started to head for our hostel. Our hostel is in Kyoto and thus we had to make our way to Kyoto. We went to buy the Kansai Area Pass for 4 days which cost us 6000 JPY. The pass allows us to take the Kansai airport express to Kyoto and we will be able to use all local trains in a predetermined area till the 21st of October. Hopefully we shall be able to make full use of this pass.
Soon after the train that we boarded got underway, the sun was almost fully set. This was about 1750hrs JPT. For the rest of the ride, it felt like we were travelling in the late night like 2300 hrs.
The JP are really formal. The train manager would make a long greet announcement everytime he came out of his cabin to start his ticket inspections and everytime he was about to go back into his cabin after completing his inspections, he would unlock the door to his cabin, turn around and make a bow.
We reached JR Kyoto station at about 1900hrs. There were quite a number of people in the station. Our hostel was about 10 to 15 mins away and as we walked, I notice that there were a pair of people behind us who were probably headed to the same place as we were. I made a wrong turn briefly and ended up behind them. We definitely ended up in the same hostel. After checking in and sorting some stuff out, we went out to buy some stuff to eat. Where else would we go but to hit the 24 hour convenience stores! I bought a sausage roll which had noodles and eggs in it. Have to be careful! Some stuff carry beef even when they don't look like they could have beef in it.
The whole time that we were walking around looking for some bites, it felt like we were outside past midnight... and it was barely 2000hrs JPT! Well, we bought our stuff and headed back to our hostel.
So far, the combined expenditure in JPY for both of us combined have hit 800SGD. OUCH!
Tomorrow, Himeji!
2 Adorations
Finally, today is the day that we depart for Japan. I hadn't actually felt that much excitement over this trip because of the problems that I had been having with SIA. Didn't even start packing my bags till about 0100hrs this morning. Finally went to bed at about half past three.
Woke up at ten minutes to six and I was supposed to meet my friend at 0620hrs. She'd grab a cab and come my way and we'd both buzz off to the airport. i had already done internet check in the night before so we already had window seats waiting for us. After collecting the boarding passes, we went off to the Mac's at one end of Terminal 3. We had our breakfast and then proceeded to board the plane. getting through customs was easy as we could go through the automatic clearance lanes. However, things got a little hairy at the gate check.
We were supposed to board the plane at gate B1, we managed to find the gate but it was a combined gate check. There were 4 gates being served by a group of x ray machines instead of individual checks for each gate. Only 3 machines were manned at the time and I think there were passengers for 2 or 3 flights trying to get past the check. The queue was long. I figured that there were a couple of people bringing contraband items in their hand luggage (stuff like liquids over their allowed limit). I started to hope for them to call people on our flight out to get checked first, and then it finally happened! Phew. My friend and I scrambled out of the queue so fast. At least 10 other people were still stuck at various stages of the queue. so we were asked to go to the front of the queue and while there, we indeed witnessed a JP guy carrying a few bottles of chilli sauce in his hand luggage. The chilli sauce was promptly thrown away by the staff, to anguished cries from the owner.
Anyway, we managed to get through the gates and onto the plane. we had barely settled in when the plane was rolling off.
Krisworld was cool. Watched Hancock, Get Smart and was got started on Men in Black. had breakfast and lunch on the plane. They served us breakfast, which was a bun and a muffin. As I was watching the movie, they didn't clear my breakfast plate till lunch, when my friend got served her lunch and I got passed over. After a bit, we got the attention of the steward to clear my breakfast tray and he asked me if i would like to have lunch now. I said yes and he told me that they only had the beef shepherd's pie left. They had run out of the Japanese menu which had Soba with chicken. My friend was lucky, she managed to get a portion of the Japanese menu, but since I got passed over, I was left with beef. So I told them that it was fine, I'd just go hungry until Japan.
This was where I was offered Salmon instead. I agreed, saying that it was fine, as long as it didn't have beef. At this point, I suspected that i was getting a lunch from Business / First class. Once the tray landed in front of me, I read the label and yep! I had gotten a lunch from Business Class.
I was advised that for the return flight, I should make my dietary restrictions clearer as sometimes, they have a beef and only one non beef menu. Just in case they run out of the non beef option.
Well, I certainly never thought that not eating beef was considered an extremely special dietary requirement. Lots of people in Singapore don't eat beef. I wonder why they didn't take into account the possibilities of how many people don't eat beef when they were planning their rations. According to my friend, this was not the first time such a thing has happened on SIA. One of the other SIA flights she took, some people ended up eating instant noodles.
Oh well, the cheese that came with the lunch was super yummy though. President cheese. When I get back to SG, I think I shall buy some!
After we landed in Kansai International Airport, we cleared customs and immigration and then my friend went off to send a package to her client on delivery to Tokyo. Once that was taken care of, we passed by some public phones and a phone card vending machine. We thought that we would be able to roam in Japan, but that proved to be negative. I'm not sure what my problem is but I think hers is because her phone is not 3G.
We bought a couple of phone cards, 7000 JPY worth! I think we over did it... My friend bought 1000 JPY worth, after we made the phone calls home, I asked if she would like to buy another card as spare, since we used up about 600 JPY worth of call credits already. She agreed and said to buy the 5000 JPY card, which I did and then she decided to buy another 1000 JPY worth of call credits! You can do your own sum and figure out how much that costs in SGD.
Next we started to head for our hostel. Our hostel is in Kyoto and thus we had to make our way to Kyoto. We went to buy the Kansai Area Pass for 4 days which cost us 6000 JPY. The pass allows us to take the Kansai airport express to Kyoto and we will be able to use all local trains in a predetermined area till the 21st of October. Hopefully we shall be able to make full use of this pass.
Soon after the train that we boarded got underway, the sun was almost fully set. This was about 1750hrs JPT. For the rest of the ride, it felt like we were travelling in the late night like 2300 hrs.
The JP are really formal. The train manager would make a long greet announcement everytime he came out of his cabin to start his ticket inspections and everytime he was about to go back into his cabin after completing his inspections, he would unlock the door to his cabin, turn around and make a bow.
We reached JR Kyoto station at about 1900hrs. There were quite a number of people in the station. Our hostel was about 10 to 15 mins away and as we walked, I notice that there were a pair of people behind us who were probably headed to the same place as we were. I made a wrong turn briefly and ended up behind them. We definitely ended up in the same hostel. After checking in and sorting some stuff out, we went out to buy some stuff to eat. Where else would we go but to hit the 24 hour convenience stores! I bought a sausage roll which had noodles and eggs in it. Have to be careful! Some stuff carry beef even when they don't look like they could have beef in it.
The whole time that we were walking around looking for some bites, it felt like we were outside past midnight... and it was barely 2000hrs JPT! Well, we bought our stuff and headed back to our hostel.
So far, the combined expenditure in JPY for both of us combined have hit 800SGD. OUCH!
Tomorrow, Himeji!
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